eXpressApp Framework: the noob demo edition

Here’s a hint if you ever have to work an exhibitor booth: if you specialize in a particular portion of your main product, it’s a guaranteed certainty that someone will walk up and ask you about another part. Some feature or functionality that you are somewhat hazy about. So, this morning…

…enter the customer who wanted to know about eXpressApp Framework and my number was up.

Let me emphasize that I can talk about the features of XAF until the cows come home, but this customer wanted a full demo with a start-from-scratch solution. I have not done this demo for a full year, possibly more. Gary is not part of this trip, so the heat was most assuredly on.

File New Project: easy. I selected the full application option. I was going to do Oliver’s old demo staple of books and authors. First problem: my SQL Server Express installation is named and so doesn’t respond to “(local)” as the name. Where do I change that again? (Answer: app.config and web.config; two places and I forgot the second.) Second problem: I couldn’t for the life of me remember the XAF/XPO templates in CodeRush and there was no way I could remember enough to type a new domain object property from zero.

This necessitated a trip into the CodeRush Options page. Which is, as I’m sure you know, big. As in BIG. And I’d got the “noob” setting at the bottom so I couldn’t see the templates. Mark wasn’t around either so I had to work it all out from scratch. I finally found that the relevant templates are: xc for a new domain object (actually you shouldn’t need this particularly since you generally use Add New Item for the module and you get the right code as part of the Visual Studio template); xp<type> for a new property of a domain object; xpa for a new one-to-one or one-to-many association between two classes; and xpcl for a many-to-one association.

Once I had all that refreshed in my memory, the demo went very well.

Nevertheless, learn from my mistakes and revise enough before your trip to your company’s booth that you can provide a ‘light’ demo at a moment’s notice on any subject. You may find your expert on a feature has mysteriously disappeared.

i learned something from this -- templates for domain objects in code rush! :) i just used code snippets. i really need to play with code rush, i utilize only a percentage of what it can do.

here's what i do about connectionstrings -- i create a connectionStrings.config and add it as a link to win an web, then in the app.config and web.config i set the connectionString configSource to that. Then I only have to change the connection string in one spot! handy!

3 November, 2010

James S K Makumbi

Great post.

I myself was pleasantly startled to find the templates being used in the Videos cause i was tired of typing SetPropertyValue("").

How come noe of your demos only deal with simple basic db IO? there are no calculated fields or such complexities.

4 November, 2010

Dennis (DevExpress Support)

Julian,

Good job! Also, feel free to phone me or Gary next time;-)

4 November, 2010

Gary Short (DevExpress)

Well at least you could demo it Julian ;-)

I've found the best way to ensure that you can demo all our products is to have to do smaller events on your own (like BASTA for example). There's no place to hide then and customers have a way of finding the gaps in your knowledge if you are not on the ball... curse them all. LOL.

4 November, 2010

Julian Bucknall (DevExpress)

Dennis: I didn't phone you guys because I didn't want to wake you up :P

Gary: Good point about practice making perfect. But then again, I should have put 2 and 2 together and worked out that I was ipso facto the XAF expert on this trip and done more prep.